Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1887-11-10
Extinction of the Buffalo.

Extinction of the Buffalo.
The time was when a buffalo hunter
would have scorned the idea of gather.
Ing up dry bones for living. Indeed,
1t often happened that His Royal High.
ness would not even deign to skin the
buffalo that his own rifle brought down.
But thanks to his own reckless i'm.
providence, "Othello's' occupation S
gone" The buffalo are all dead, and
he must choose between punching COWS
and picking up bones. 10 this extent
the slain buffalo is his own avenger.
At various points along the line of
the Northern Pacific Railway westward
from jamestown, OAK. buffalo bones
lay piled in great heaps beside the track
waiting for shipment. They are the
only monuments that remain to the
American Bison, which, to quote the
great original observation of every
tenderfoot. 'once roamed in vast herds
over these boundless prairies. s." In a
short time even the bones VII be gath
cred up. and nothing whatever remain
10 mark the presence upon this earth
Of 100000 bison at one time save
what can be found in the museums,
the geological gardens or the tertiary
deposits of the earth itself. Could any
war of EXTERN nato be more complete
or far-reaching in its resultsa
From the Red Buttes onward you see
where the millions have gone. This
was once famous buffalo range, and
now the bleaching skeletons lie scat
tered thickly all along the trail. Like
CHASTITY monuments of slaughter, these
ugly excresccnces stand out in bold re.
lief on the smooth, hard surface of the
prairie from tho huge bull skeletons.
lying close beside the wagon trail to
those far back in the bad lands, where
they are merely dark speckS in the dis.
lance. They lie to-day prec sely as
they fell four years ago, except that tn,
flesh is no longer upon them. The
head stretches far for W ard. as if for its
last gasp, and the legs lie helplcssly
upon the turf with prec sely the same
curves rs when they moved for the last
time.
Now and then you come to n place
where the hunter got a "stand' on
"bunch." and from his tidlng-place III
the head OF gully or among the rocks
fired lie surly with his 40-l20 Sharpe's
rifle, at the rate of II shot every two oil
three minutes, until every buffalo of the
bunch had fallen. Here you can coun
seventeen skeletons on Il little more
than an acre, and near by there arr
fourteen more that evidently fell at tn,
same time, The powerful effect of tn,
strong. parching winds, and the in
tense dry heat of summer, has LITERAL,
stripped the flesh from the bones. bu
the skeletons lie prec sely rs they fell
The bones are still held together by /;
few DIR ed-up ligaments. but are bleach
ed rs white as snow. Sometimes W,
found immence skeletons that were alb
solutely perfect, even to the tiny car
pal and tarsal bones, the size of Il hazel
nut OF these dry skeletons we select
ell eight of the largest, and they ar,
now cached in the storage-rooms of tn
National Museum against the grea
fam nc for bison that will soon set in.
Beyond the Red Buttes we wer,
seldom out of sight OF bleaching skele
tons, and often forty Of fifty were il
| sight at one time. The SINNERS al
WAYS left the heads of the bulls unskn
cd, and the thick hide has dried dow
upon the skulls harder than the bon,
Itself, holding the tangled masses o
the shaggy frontlet iirmley in place un
| til it blcechc ) brown in the sunshine
and is finally worn away by wind ant
weather. Many of these heads are s.
perfectly preserved, and with thei
thick masses of wayy brown hair ar
so fresh looking, that the slaug hter o
the millions is brought right down Il
the present and it seems to have beef
the work OF yesterday. w can endur
the sight of the bones reasonably well
for we expect ii; but those great hair.
heads make us feel our loss most keen
ly. At first it is impossible to look a
one without II sigh, and each group o
skeletons brings back the old thought.
"What pity!- Cosmopolitan.